In The Aftermath
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: Spock/Chapel. In the hours after the events of The Naked Time, things go terribly wrong on the Enterprise...
1. Chapter 1

1.

In the aftermath, she wandered. She moved in silence, almost a ghost in the corridors, the flaming in her body subsiding to nothingness, the chaos in her head drifting to the bottom of her mind and leaving a void above. When a door slipped closed behind her it was only after some seconds of standing and staring, numb-eyed, at the room before her that she realised she had found her way back to her quarters, like an animal returning to its den.

She had been left cold. No, she was more than cold. She was – she almost laughed at herself for her romanticism – she was like a carcass lying on permafrost, the ribs arching up, empty, covering nothing but a shivering hollow. She remembered that feeling in her hands – that odd, insistent, itching in her skin, the same feeling she got from low-humidity, biting-cold winters back home. Except she had not felt dry. She had felt flushed, hot, over-hot and urgent. Her skin had tingled, her heart had been pounding in her ears. She had felt dizzy with the infection in her mind and in her pores. She had been able to do anything.

_Do anything…_

She had done just that – just that thing she had sworn to herself that she would never do. She had always promised herself, _I will stay professional, I will never say a word…_ But somehow the infection had seeped into her, and she had left her dignity far behind, forgotten in a dusty corner.

That feeling in the core of her torso – that _I can do anything_ feeling… That invasive heat that had made the surface of her body tingle, had made her aware that the only thing she needed to do was confess to him – confess, and make it all right…

_I'm in love with you, Mr Spock._

Oh, it had been so easy to say…

_You – the human Mr Spock, the Vulcan Mr Spock_

That look in his eyes… That puzzlement, and the slow melting, the knowledge that something inside him was crumbling away as she held his hand. So hot, he was… His fingers were so warm against hers, dryer than hers, his skin a smooth and new feeling to her fingertips, different from everything she had imagined. She could feel electricity in those hands. Vulcan anatomy was different, she knew. She had forgotten – consciously forgotten, deliberately forgotten, perhaps – she was not sure… She had forgotten the nerve clusters in a Vulcan's hands, and what they did with those nerves in contact with another body, and what the touch between their fingers might mean…

She closed her eyes now, leaning against the wall in her room, still in that ridiculously short duty uniform, still with her hair tumbling artfully about her face, still with tears stinging at the back of her eyelids…

_I am sorry_, she heard him say again. _Christine…_

And that crumbling in him – it had not been his resolve slipping away so that he could fall into her. It had been a tumbling of _I'm sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…_ It had been a regret so sharp that it made her weep to think of it, to think of how it must be inside his mind.

She closed her arms around her own body, her skin ridiculously cold compared to his. She hugged herself, the only person who would do that for her.

She had felt his regret even after he had left, as if his mind was linked to hers by tenuous strands. It was like a torrent crashing through a sea wall, flooding the arid land and making chaotic what had once been ordered and calm. His emotions had reached through the walls, had brushed against her for a dozen minutes afterwards, whether because of their touch or simply because of the strength of his feeling she did not know. She felt nothing now. Nothing at all.

She found her desk chair, and sat. She wanted to crawl into her bed and pull the blanket up over herself and lie in the void of darkness. She thought of the void outside the ship, and how tempting it was to think of the drifting, airless silence and the absolute zero that would hold her mind and body safe and still.

She was moving her fingertips over the wood veneer of the desk. Good of the 'fleet… Yes, it was good of them to include these natural touches, to include small slivers of earth in these rooms so far from home… Good to remind her what she had come from, and what she would become again.

And then – 'Miss Chapel.'

Her surprise was electrifying. She had heard no buzzer, no _swoosh_ of the door panel sliding into the wall. She had heard nothing until that deep, velvet voice, and she looked up to see him standing there, just inside the closed door, with a hesitant, deferential look on his face that she did not associate with his normal demeanour. His hands were behind his back, his head ever so slightly bowed.

She stood automatically, stepping out from behind the desk.

He took a step forward, saying, 'I buzzed for entry, but you did not respond. In the situation my override code – '

He broke off at the look in her eyes, at the slight widening as she asked, 'In the situation you thought it appropriate to force entry to my quarters?'

He moved back again at the crackle of anger in her voice, and she could read the surprise in his face. Damn it, she needed to learn when to use defensiveness to good effect, and when it was just a stupid, reflex reaction of her wary mind.

'I'm sorry,' she said, pushing her previous question aside with a tired wave of her hand. 'I'm sure you had a logical reason.'

There was the sarcasm again, heavy in the word _logical_. Damn it… She had not meant that at all.

'Do you wish me to leave?' Spock asked her, able to control the inflections in his voice far better than she.

'No,' she said tiredly, then corrected herself to, 'No, Commander.'

She could not quite bring herself to call him _sir _after all that had happened today. Looking up at him again she noticed the faintest shadow of a bruise on his cheek, and other instincts than her own self-preservation took over.

'Oh,' she began, stepping forward. 'Your cheek needs – '

He shook his head, dismissing her concern. 'It is nothing more than a bruise.'

_How?_ she wondered. _What happened?_

A lot had happened that she had not been privy to – she knew that. God knows where he had gone when he left her, in that tumble of emotions that had begun to surge through him. God knows what had happened with half the crew in the last few days, with Joe Tormolen dying on the table, and everyone else going crazy... Even Spock. Even Spock had not been immune, and his emotions had unravelled from him like a ruined sweater.

'We have regressed in time seventy-one hours,' Spock said, stepping forward again.

She looked at him quizzically.

'We were compelled to ignite the engines from cold,' he explained. 'The force of the implosion sent us on a slingshot about this system's sun. We have regressed in time seventy-one hours.'

Her look of confusion did not go away.

'Did you come here just to tell me that, Mr Spock?' she asked him, trying so hard to keep the impatience from her voice.

She was tired, and she felt as if this virus had stripped her and left her naked, and here he was standing in her quarters when she felt at her most exposed, talking to her about implosions and slingshots and time travel. Surely time travel was impossible?

'No, Christine,' he said in a softer voice.

_Christine…_ The word registered slowly in her mind. Spock said nothing that was not a deliberate choice.

'We have – three days to live again,' he said, coming closer still. 'Three days we have already had. They – are a bonus, perhaps.'

She could feel him now – she could feel the heat radiating from him against the chill of her quarters. _Why is it cold?_ she wondered briefly. A lot had been crazy about the ship recently. Likely the heating systems had been tampered with, or perhaps power had been rerouted from them to aid the ship in its fight against the gravity of Psi 2000.

'Three days…' she murmured.

God, the last few days had been a splintered mirror, a raging chaos that had dragged her along in its path. She didn't want the last three days back again. Maintenance crews were scrubbing down the walls, fixing doors, repairing smashed consoles. Everyone was trying their best to erase what had happened, not relive it. She had heard rumours of Hikaru Sulu, half naked in the corridors with a rapier, of Andi Pargeter sunbathing nude in the botany lab… No, no one wanted to remember….

And Spock… Surely Spock would have most cause of all to want to forget something that had stripped his control from him and exposed him to her flailing emotions?

'Mr Spock, you did get the hypo, didn't you?' she asked suddenly, conscious of the slight stinging pain in her own arm from her shot. 'Dr McCoy gave you the cure for the virus?'

There was an odd movement in his face, as if he had suddenly caught sight of something he had forgotten. Then he said, 'I – controlled the virus by other means.'

She regarded him doubtfully. She was sure that he was capable of controlling the symptoms of a disease once he was confident of what they were, but that did not mean he could fight the disease itself.

'I told you,' he said. 'I am sorry. I meant that.'

'I – have no doubt that you mean everything that you say, Mr Spock,' she said rather drily.

He was closer still now, so close that she could see the trembling of his pulse in his neck, and feel the heat that he was radiating with greater force, and hear the almost inaudible ragged catch in his breath.

'It is too late,' he continued, his voice lowering, catching again. 'I – cannot explain. I cannot explain everything. But it is too late. I have been committed, from a very young age…'

There he trailed off, leaving her bewildered, breathing in the heat of his presence, conscious that he was echoing the scene of earlier by catching at her hands with his. Their fingertips were touching and her skin seemed to hum with electricity, conjuring an irresistible surge – an urge to run or fall or melt against him and breathe nothing, nothing but the scent of him that rose about him.

'You – need – the serum,' she said with great deliberation, forcing her words through the haze that seemed to be swirling about her.

He was stroking his fingertips upon hers and – how strange – she seemed to be falling, falling, losing her sense of herself and finding it blending with – another… His fingers were velvet, melting, his fingers, her fingers –

Abruptly she regained some sense of herself and jerked away, almost choking, her ears ringing, feeling as though she had been about to faint. She gasped in air, fresh air that did not taste of him, and her eyes cleared. She saw him standing there, shaking, his eyes glazed and his chest heaving like hers. Her fingertips felt as if they had been glued to his and had been wrenched away. If she had looked down and seen them torn and bleeding she would not have been surprised – but they were not. They were just as they had been. Just the same…

'You need the serum,' she repeated with great control. 'Will you come to the sickbay, or do I need to call Dr McCoy down here?'

That seemed to recall him to some kind of reality. He blinked, and then closed his eyes, a brief, deep look of pain shuddering through him.

'No,' he said, catching breath back into his lungs, tightening his fists at his sides. 'No, I will go to the sickbay.'

He opened his hand, reached out as if to touch her face – and then re-clenched his fist, briefly biting his lip into his mouth.

'I am sorry,' he said, and she smiled through tears. Those words seemed to have become a litany.

'Sickbay,' she said quietly, and she pushed herself through her wariness to put her hand to his arm, turning him toward the door.

He really was hot… She pressed her fingers a little harder against his arm, closing her hand more tightly upon him to feel his temperature through his sleeve. She had felt him before. She knew his precise temperature from medical examinations, but that was not the same as touching him. She knew that the heat shimmering from him now was greater than that she had felt in his hands all those hours ago in sickbay.

And her fingertips jerked, wrenched open unexpectedly as he slumped onto his knees and then spread onto the floor in a graceless heap.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Spock fell, spinning, into another place. His body felt like fire. Was this his Time, he wondered? And then another, more rational voice said, _no, no, this is not how that comes about. The virus – the serum. You are ill…_

The second that it took to fall seemed to last years, his ears screaming, his nose full of the scent of the woman beside him, his hearing catching the muffled sound of her voice speaking unintelligibly.

_What was it, what was it?_

Confusion battered at him as he slowly slipped downwards, his emotions tumbling like marbles about him.

_Christine… Too late, too late…_

Too late? But time had been looped and crinkled about them, it had rucked like a loose carpet. Three days… It was three days before _too late…_

_Irrational_, that cold, controlled voice said. _You are ceasing to make sense. Delirium._

But three days… The clock had been turned back. He had unexpected time. Time out of time…

_Irrational_, the voice said again inside his head, sounding curiously like his father, or his Vulcan instructors, or a mixture of both. _Irrational. Three days makes no difference. You are still pledged_.

And something cold and still more rational struck him before he truly lost consciousness, the words coming telegraphically into his mind.

_Three days. Oberon Sector. Anomaly…_

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Christine was kneeling beside him a split second after he fell, rolling him onto his back and lifting his eyelids with a thumb. There was an ooze of green blood beginning from a split in his forehead where he had hit the edge of – what was it? It must have been that plant pot she kept near the door. His skin was beginning to swell around it.

His top ripped with surprisingly little effort under her hands, until his chest was bared. He must have been warm, for he was wearing no undershirt. She pressed her hand to his side, and was rewarded by the slow thud of his heart beneath the supple arching of his ribs. And then he turned his head and muttered something incoherent, his eyes half opening and then slipping closed again.

'Spock,' she said sharply. 'Mr Spock!'

'Three days,' he murmured through almost closed lips. 'Three days… Course and speed… Christine…'

'I don't understand,' she said, bewildered. She started to move toward the intercom, but he caught her hand with surprising force.

'Seventy-one hours ago,' he murmured, 'on our current flight path… There was – '

And suddenly she remembered. It had been nothing more than news in passing, sub-space chatter. It didn't affect them, since they were at Psi 2000, not due to travel that route for three days. What had it been? Some kind of interstellar dust cloud or a dark matter cluster? Damn it, she couldn't remember. Something that had coalesced in that vicinity and then dispersed. There had been no ships passing that way, no one had discovered exactly what it was before it drifted away again. It was a scientific curiosity, but little more…

She reached out for the intercom again, intent this time on calling the bridge. Spock was evidently fevered but not in danger. McCoy could be her second call.

But as her fingers touched the button, everything about her died into silence and darkness.

She stood immobile for a moment, her fingers steady on the button which she had pressed only an instant before the lights went out. There was no faint hum of connection from the speaker. There was not even the faint vibration of the ship's engines in the deck plating beneath her feet. Evidently all power was dead.

She moved toward the door in the velvet darkness. That too was inert, the sensor not functioning as she moved into its range. She pressed her hand against the door, and exhaled slowly. Spock, perhaps, would be able to force it, if he was at peak physical fitness. But Spock was semi-unconscious on the floor, and she had no hope of forcing the panel to move herself.

She turned again, moving as if she were blind, pushing her feet along the floor without losing contact until her toe touched something soft. She knelt and touched him, her fingers finding his sleeve first and then moving across to his chest. She was momentarily surprised to feel the intimate sensation of his bare skin, and a light furring of hair – and then she remembered how she had torn his top apart. She sighed, laying her palm flat on his chest and sitting back on her heels. Despite the slow, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath her hand and the heat of him in the air around her, she felt curiously alone.

'Spock,' she said finally, in a low, hesitant voice.

He stirred a little, and then murmured, 'Christine? Nurse – '

'Yes,' she said. 'I'm still here,' she added unnecessarily.

'I can't see,' he said.

'The power's out,' she said, registering the faint uncertainty in his tone. 'What was it, Mr Spock? The – what was it, a cloud or a nebula – on our current flight path?'

She felt him stir again. Waves of heat were pouring from his skin.

'Class six anomaly,' he murmured. 'Negative energy. Unknown.'

'Oh…' she said slowly.

A person picked up plenty working on a starship, but still, she was a nurse, not an astrophysicist. She could not claim to have a clue what the definition of a Class Six Anomaly was – although she suspected it wouldn't matter even if she did.

'Well,' she said slowly. 'I think we've run in to it…'

He stirred again, and she felt a tension moving through his body, as if he were gathering deep internal reserves and bringing them to bear.

'I need – to get to the bridge,' he said with new force.

'You can't,' she said realistically. 'You're not capable of that.'

He slumped a little, acknowledging his incapability with a grunt.

'You need to get to the sick bay,' he said in a slow, deliberate voice.

She heard the catch in his breath, and touched her hand to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart and the unceasing heat from his skin. There was no rattle in his lungs.

'Mr Spock, are – you scared?' she asked him in a low voice, scared herself of the response.

He was silent for a long moment, and she felt a shiver run through him under the palm of her hand.

'You need to get to the sick bay,' he repeated. 'I – am finding it hard to control my – emotions, Christine. We both – '

And then she felt it too – the slight, insistent itch between her fingers, as if her skin had become too dry, and the little fist of panic clutching at her heart.

'You've re-infected me,' she said slowly. 'The virus – '

'Adapts,' Spock said. 'The virus adapts, and I have re-infected you. It – is imperative – '

She nodded, despite the fact that he would not see the movement in the darkness. It was imperative to eliminate the virus before it re-infected the entire ship.

'I can't open the door,' she said, her voice devoid of hope.

She felt him stir again, felt his muscles quiver under her hand.

'Together, perhaps,' he said. 'Together we can force it. And then you – '

'And then I'll get to sickbay and get the serum, and we'll both be fine,' she finished for him, trying to drive away the seeping, insidious loss of control that the disease was trying to spark in her body.

'You – must control yourself,' Spock said, his breath shuddering again. 'Your mind is – too close.'

She realised that she had clawed her fingernails into his chest, and she relaxed her hand.

'I don't understand,' she said.

He made a noise of impatience.

'Whenever you touch me I feel your thoughts. I feel them now. I feel the disease unravelling your own control. I cannot control for both of us.'

She caught her breath, snatching her hand away from him as if he had finally burnt her.

'All right,' she said, inducing calm with a great effort. 'All right. If you're going to help me open that door you need to get on your feet.'

'I am very aware of that,' Spock said, with a dark edge of impatience in his voice.

And he began to sit, shuddering with effort. She slipped her hands under his arms, biting back the beginnings of a reckless desire to laugh. They moved across the room in utter, silent darkness, until Spock slumped against the door, shuddering breath into his lungs. And then he seemed to conjure some final reserve of strength and determination, and the door began to creak under his hands.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

It was dark when Christine stepped into the corridor. No. It was more than dark. There was not a word in her lexicon to describe the utter, silent, impenetrable blackness that surrounded her. It almost felt solid, like a wall through which she could not pass.

_No different to my quarters,_ she reminded herself. _It's no different to my quarters._

But it _was_ different. She was used to darkness in her quarters. She was used to the soft darkness of night, and of getting out of bed without bothering to switch on the light and navigating her way to the bathroom about familiar and loved items. This darkness in the corridor was just _odd_. And the silence…

She stood still for a moment, just listening. No footfalls, no small incidental sounds of life. No subliminal thrum of the engines, no hisses of doors opening or closing, or laughs or murmured words. It was just _not right_.

And then a murmur of sound came from behind her, and she almost screamed – before recalling exactly where she was and what she was doing, and that Spock was lying near the door in the same pitch blackness of her quarters, waiting for her to collect the serum that would possibly save his life.

_And my life_, the little insistent, clenching-panic voice whispered. _My life too, now… And everyone on this ship. Everyone waiting to be reinfected…_

_Stop it_, she told herself firmly.

She knew that feeling – that little needling feeling itching at the back of her skull and just under her skin. Last time it had manifested as hopeless, tragic love. This time it was panic and paranoia – but it was the same feeling, all right.

She inhaled deeply, drawing on an approximation of how she imagined Spock would control such a feeling. Fear was illogical. This was still the _Enterprise_ – it was just dark. That was all.

It helped. It didn't help as much as she imagined such a rationalisation would help Spock, but it pushed down some of the prickling feelings of fear, and it allowed her to step forward, one foot in front of the other, into the black, empty corridor.

She walked almost fifty yards down the corridor, her hand on the wall, feeling the unusual chill in the panels beneath her fingertips. And then the thought struck her – _Why is it so quiet? I can make noise. My feet make a noise on the floor. I can hear my breathing. I could hear my voice, and Spock's voice. Why don't I hear anyone else?_

The _Enterprise_ felt like a ghost ship… Cold, silent, the walls dewed with moisture condensed from the last breaths of the living…

The fingers of fear trailed up her spine again.

She stopped, and forced herself to speak aloud.

'Christine Chapel, there is nothing to be afraid of. You are a nurse. Get to sickbay. You're needed.'

Her voice sounded loud and weak all at once, a shout against a vast expanse of nothingness. She imagined herself standing on a precipice, all of space before her, teetering over the void, about to fall. The darkness was so absolute, her mind could paint any ghosts that it wanted into her thoughts. She wished she had not spoken.

She pressed her lips together, and walked on, counting off doors and intersections as she came to them. She had no idea what she would do when she got to the turbolift. Open the emergency hatch and climb the access ladder, she supposed – but doing that in the dark was a challenge she did not want to think about until she was facing it. She just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and –

_Oh!_

Something – some obstacle – on the floor, in her path. Something soft, and weighty.

She knelt, and reached out a hand, and felt –

Despite herself, she screamed.

It was – flesh.

She put her hand back, tentatively now, tracing her fingers over the familiar soft feeling of tights, contoured smoothly over what was undeniably, horribly, a cold, inert, dead thigh.

Without even a flicker of warning, the lights came on.

She found herself kneeling in the centre of the corridor, her breath coming fast and erratic, blinking against the sudden brilliance of light after complete darkness.

She forced herself to see, first perceiving the blue of a science division dress, and the black of the tights she had felt, and seeing the crumpled shape of a body that had fallen unexpectedly into unconscious. And then she reached up a hand to brush an auburn sweep of hair away from the face, and –

_Oh… Jan Erbolt. Jan…_

Her throat clenched. The ensign was undeniably dead. Christine Chapel had seen death enough times to recognise it in this woman who lay slumped on the floor, who she had last seen bright-eyed and laughing at the prospect of a date with Michael Cunliffe from engineering…

There was nothing to be done. There were no contusions, no blood, no sign of illness. She had not time for an in depth investigation. She had to get to sickbay. With an effort, against the obstinately heavy weight of the dead body, she shifted Jan sideways, until she lay in a more composed and peaceful alignment beside the wall. She had nothing with which to cover her face. She swallowed on her sadness, and moved on.

There was another, and another… People she knew, people she smiled at in the corridors, people she liked or disliked or worked with every day, crumpled on the floor as if their strings had been cut, datapadds and other equipment scattered on the floor or still half-clutched in limp hands. She stared at them in blank disbelief, grief wreathing itself about her shocked mind but the reality of it unable to fully penetrate her thoughts.

The turbolift worked perfectly, as if there had never been anything wrong with the ship. She stood in the chamber travelling down to deck 7 with a prickling feeling of unease in her spine, waiting for something catastrophic to happen.

But nothing did happen. She exited the lift and turned down the corridor, keeping her eyes level and centred, not glancing down at the floor to see yet another colleague slumped and cold.

She stood for a moment staring at the doors into sickbay. She didn't want to go in. No part of her body wanted to move, in the knowledge of what she must find in there. But – Spock was still there in her quarters, alive and warm and waiting for her to help him. She had to go in.

She took a step forward and reached out her hand to the door, tentatively waiting for the sensor to detect her presence. The doors slid open, and she steeled herself against the sight…

But there was no one in the room before her. She left out breath slowly, and stepped inside. The serum would be in the locked cabinet in the supply room. She had to pass through the examination room and get the serum, and then she could leave.

She walked into the examination room, and said, 'Oh…'

Tears brimmed up in her eyes. She could not stop herself from walking over to the corner of the room, where a figure in a blue top lay awkwardly slumped against the wall.

'Leonard,' she said softly, reaching out against all hope to feel for a pulse in his neck.

There was nothing, and she let her hand drop. She could not bring herself to move him, as she had Jan Erbolt. That would be admitting that Leonard McCoy was dead…

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

She entered the supply room in a daze, punched the code into the cabinet, and retrieved the serum and a hypospray. She had the presence of mind to inject herself there and then. The itching and the increase in emotion was still needling at her, reminding her of how she was infected, and as the serum entered her bloodstream she felt a ripple of relief flow through her.

She stood for a moment, catching her breath, gathering her thoughts, and steeling herself for the walk back through the examination room. And then she slipped the hypo and the serum into a shoulder bag and left the sickbay.

And then, she ran. Apart from the short trip in the turbolift she did not stop running until she reached the door to her quarters. She stood there, heaving deep breaths into her lungs, clutching the hypospray in her hand.

But what if – A coldness clenched at her. What if Spock was – gone – too? What if she was the only one left?

She stepped forward, and opened the door – and almost sobbed in her relief. Spock was lying where she had left him, sprawled on the floor like so many of the bodies in the corridor. But he was undeniably alive, his eyes half open and his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

She knelt and pressured the full dose of the serum into his arm – and then something inside her collapsed and she dropped her head onto his chest, sobbing the horror and the stress of the past half hour out of her body and onto his.

'Miss Chapel.'

Spock's voice startled her into silence and she sat up, unaware of how long she had been lying across the Vulcan's body with her head on the warm skin of his chest.

Spock blinked, focussing his eyes on her face, concern briefly furrowing his forehead. It was obvious that the worst ravages of the disease had left him.

'Not for me, Miss Chapel?' he asked her softly. 'I assure you, I am – '

'Everyone's dead,' she said in a faint, shaking voice. 'Mr Spock, _everyone_ is – '

He sat up, almost pushing her away in his haste. Almost, but not quite.

'Have you injected yourself with the serum?' he asked her calmly.

She nodded, aware of how she must appear, shaking and tearful and falling apart.

'I took it in sickbay,' she said, trying to force her voice into calmness. 'Mr Spock – I didn't see a single living person between here and sickbay. But I saw – at least twenty or thirty crewmembers, all dead. Dr McCoy is – '

Spock's gaze sharpened. He got to his feet, apparently still a little unsteady in his movements but quite capable of standing. He looked about himself, almost as if he had woken from a long sleep.

'Ship's power is restored,' he said.

She nodded. 'It came back a few minutes after I left here. I'd just – '

She faltered, remembering Jan lying there, and the feeling of that dead, inert thigh just before the lights had come on.

'I almost tripped on something,' she said. 'And the lights came on, and I saw it was – Ensign Erbolt.'

'Ensign Janet Erbolt, from the geological survey department?' Spock asked her, and she nodded.

'And you are quite certain – ' he began – but broke off at the look on her face.

'Mr Spock, I am a nurse,' she said tartly. 'Jan was dead. Very dead.'

Spock moved to the intercom near the door and depressed the button. The slight hiss from the speaker showed that the communications system was functioning now.

'Spock to bridge,' he said, and waited for a response.

None came.

'Spock to sickbay,' he tried again. 'Dr McCoy?'

'He's _dead_,' Christine burst out, anger and misery infecting her voice at having to state that reality. 'I told you he's dead. I saw him there, on the floor.'

Spock turned then, and looked at her, and for a brief moment she wondered how he could so easily shake off the ravages of an illness that had recently had him nearly unconscious. But then, this was Spock, and she had seen evidence of his self-control before…

'There's no response through communications,' Spock said flatly. 'I suggest we go to the sickbay.'

'Or the bridge,' Christine suggested quietly.

She had no desire to return to the sickbay and to see the bodies of her friends and colleagues lying where they had fallen.

'Yes,' Spock said, looking preoccupied again. 'The bridge would be logical.'

She looked at him, realising that beneath his stoic countenance and his level words was the thought, _The bridge, where the captain will be…_

Spock inhaled, looking down at his top and seeming to suddenly realise that it was ripped almost to the neckline.

'Oh, I – had to check your vitals,' Christine said, suddenly oddly self conscious.

Spock always looked the most attractive when he was slightly dishevelled, and he was certainly dishevelled now, with his clothes torn and his hair in disarray from his tumble to the floor.

'Of course,' he said, touching the skin of his chest where her tears had dried onto his skin. She saw a shadow of a thought pass over his face, and then his eyes became veiled again. 'Stay close to me,' he said – the only concession he had made so far to her obvious fear and shock.

She would have no problem staying close to him. She moved closer still as he went to the door. For a moment she wished that he would offer her his hand – but she chided herself for that thought. There was absolutely no logic in the action.

The corridor was empty and silent, just as she had expected. She could tell that Spock was listening for movement. He still didn't – perhaps did not want to – believe her story. They turned to the left, since the turbolift to sickbay was the same shaft that would take them to the bridge, and she swallowed, knowing that soon enough they would come across Jan Erbolt's body.

She worked hard at convincing herself that it _had_ all been a hallucination – perhaps provoked by the Psi 2000 virus – and it was almost a shock when they finally saw the blue-clad female figure lying still on the floor. Spock gave the smallest intake of breath and his step paused momentarily – and then he moved on, swiftly covering the remaining ground to where Jan lay and kneeling by her, taking her wrist in his fingers.

_No point checking the pulse_, Christine thought – but she said nothing.

'Did you move her?' Spock asked, his words short and clipped.

'Yes – just her,' Christine said in a quiet voice, finally coming closer. 'She was the only one I moved.'

Spock shot her a quick glance, and she could see that he was beginning to believe her story. There was a definite hint of alarm in his eyes. No logic could deny the evidence of this body on the floor. By now Jan was cold, and beginning to show obvious signs of being dead rather than just asleep. She presented a far less peaceful sight than she had earlier.

'We'll continue to the bridge,' he said shortly.

She could see the tension between his shoulder blades as he straightened up, and it scared her.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Was it a relief or did it only add another level of unbearable anticipation that the corridor and turbolift to the bridge were clear of bodies? Christine glanced at Spock as they rode up through the decks, thinking that probably it made it worse. She wanted to grasp at his arm, and she had to twist her hands behind her back to stop herself from reaching out.

Standing as he was, with his torn shirt and his face pale with illness, he seemed to be wrapped in a kind of fear himself. Probably it was just the sickness. Probably it was just cold. But she could see the hairs on his chest standing proud as if frissons of fear were passing through him, and his lips were tight, his hands clenched hard at his sides.

'Mr Spock – ' she began, uncertain of what she wanted to say.

He was about to glance at her – and then the lift doors opened in front of them, and the bridge was revealed.

Christine began to rush forward, but he grasped at her arm to stop her, his fingers unwittingly tight on her flesh. He swallowed. She could see his Adam's apple moving slowly in his throat.

'Haste will not profit them,' he said very quietly.

'If there's any hope that they're – ' she began.

Spock shook his head briefly.

'No one is alive on this bridge.'


	3. Chapter 3

[Authorial Intrusion – Come and join the Spock & Christine Lovers group on Facebook! www. facebook. Com /?ref=logo#!/ home. php?sk=group_176248985749864&ap=1 (remove the spaces for the link to work) Oh, and sorry this story's so depressing! :O]

3.

'Why?' Christine asked in a voice that was almost a whisper. 'Why?'

'Death does not ascribe moral judgements to its victims,' Spock said in something close to a monotone. His eyes seemed to be riveted to the chair at the centre of the bridge, his lips tight with something that must be grief.

'You misunderstand me, Mr Spock,' Christine said, taking a cautious step forwards. It was perhaps typical of the Vulcan to assign emotional motivations to her utterances. 'It seems that we two are the only people alive aboard this ship. Why us? What's different about us?'

'We were together,' Spock said, and then his voice trailed off, as if for once his superior brain had failed him.

He walked forward onto the bridge, his footsteps sounding loud and lonely on the deck despite the muffling effect of the carpet. He stepped down to the captain's chair and, despite all logic, touched his fingers to the captain's neck.

Jim Kirk looked as if he had fallen asleep in the chair after a long day, his head lounging sideways, his arms loose in his lap and his legs still crossed. His eyes were closed as if in sleep.

Spock's fingers stayed at the place where the captain's pulse should be far longer than necessary. The rigidity seemed to have left his body, and he suddenly looked very tired.

Finally he stepped away from the captain's chair, stepping backwards until his heels touched the steps that led to the upper bridge. He sank down on the step, clasping his hands together in front of him and staring at the viewscreen and the sickeningly normal spread of bright stars that covered it.

Christine stood motionless for a moment – and then her eyes drifted to the slumped body of a science lieutenant near the engineering station. There was a tricorder there, loosely held in still, stiff fingers. She took it and switched it on, letting it confirm what was obvious to human eyes. There was not a pulse, not a heartbeat, not an expelled carbon-dioxide rich breath on the bridge that was not associated with her or the Vulcan.

She moved to the science station. Thankfully the chair was empty, and she sat in it, touching controls to open up a connection to the main computer. Everything on the ship that was not – that _had_ not been – alive seemed to be working perfectly.

'Computer, scan the _Enterprise_ for life signs,' she said in a low voice.

The computer whirred, and lights began to flicker on the board. Finally it said in its mechanical voice, 'Life signs detected.'

Her heart leapt with a brief kindling of joy. And then she caught it and pushed it away, asking carefully, 'Computer, location of the life signs.'

'Two distinct life signs are present on the _Enterprise_ bridge,' the computer replied without consciousness or emotion.

Christine sighed. She turned in the chair, her eyes moving to where Spock sat, seemingly lost in dejection or deep thought, or something else that rendered him silent and immobile.

'Computer, are there life signs detected anywhere else on the ship?' she asked, a note of desperation creeping into her voice.

'Negative,' the computer said flatly.

Spock turned his head, seeming to come alive at that flat and final intonation by the computer. He stood up and stepped closer to the command chair again. Then, as if he were lifting a child, he took the captain in his arms and carried him, with great care, to the flat space in front of the viewscreen. There he laid him down and, taking a fire blanket from its niche under a nearby console, he covered him and stepped away. His face was rigid with control.

'What about the others?' Christine asked quietly, knowing it was wrong to interrupt this great and controlled grief, but unable to let silence continue on the bridge.

She looked to Uhura, slumped beneath her console in a heartbreakingly ungainly position. In life, Uhura was never anything but graceful. Christine echoed Spock's movements, picking up the small woman with surprising ease and taking her to lay her beside the captain.

Spock exhaled heavily, and began the silent task of moving the remaining bodies until they lay ranked about the captain, flanking him in death as they had in life. Then he moved to the environmental station and said in an oddly toned voice, 'Computer, reduce temperature throughout the ship to two hundred sixty eight Kelvin, excluding the quarters of Commander Spock, Nurse Christine Chapel, Auxiliary Control and the ship's labs.'

A compromise, Christine knew, between turning the ship into a long term morgue and keeping it warm enough for the two souls left alive to be able to function. It was a highly logical solution to the problem. The bridge began to chill almost immediately. It was keeping heat in a ship that was the problem in deep space, not excluding it.

'Auxiliary Control,' Spock murmured, turning to Christine. 'We must contact Command.'

He was functioning, she knew, in a kind of haze. Vulcan or not, she had seen the reaction of shock in far too many people in her career. Despite all of his ability to mask it, Spock was experiencing a kind of shock – and so was she...

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Clad now in a cold weather jacket, and with gloves lying beside him on the console, Spock was still enclosed in his intense, introspective attitude, his finger resting on the button for the communications unit he had just switched off. His message to Command had been concise, and largely free of detail. There was not a lot of detail that he _could_ give, and the message would not reach command for a few hours anyway, at this distance from Earth. They were truly alone, on a ship of the dead.

Christine sat in a chair by the narrow science console, idly passing her eyes over readings and statistics as they flashed onto the screens. They had done enough to keep the ship running with minimal input, and set course for the nearest civilised planet. That was the most they could do.

'What now?' she asked finally.

Spock turned to her, and for a moment she was reminded of that look in his eyes when he had first come to her in her cabin – that sad and hopeless look of things that could not be righted. And then the veil of control flickered over his face again and he seemed to pull rigidity back into his body.

'We are the only two alive on this ship, Miss Chapel,' he said steadily. 'Now, we must discover why.'

'There was the anomaly,' she began. 'Everything stopped. Everything mechanical, everything electrical – '

'Everything biological,' Spock continued. 'Except us. Something set us apart from the rest of the ship's complement. Location, species…' He fixed her with his penetrating gaze. 'Miss Chapel, you _are_ entirely human?'

'Human all the way back to the First Contact,' she said confidently. 'It can't be that. And – yes, we were together in my quarters, but my quarters weren't exempt from whatever that anomaly did. The lights went out in there, the heating cut out, the intercom was dead.'

'Yes,' Spock murmured. 'Yes, everything ceased to function. No difference to the rest of the ship. Except… Except…'

'Except what?' she asked in desperation. 'Except nothing!'

'Except I had not received the antidote to the virus, and you were re-infected by it,' Spock said slowly. 'We two were the only people aboard this ship to be suffering the Psi 2000 virus as we passed through that anomaly. Judging by its current course and speed, the anomaly would have passed Psi 2000 fifteen days before we arrived at the planet. The research scientists died five days after that. They were not killed by the anomaly – they were killed by their own insanity.'

He seemed to have suddenly come to life.

'But why on earth – ' she began.

'We need to access the records from the station on Psi 2000,' Spock said in a clipped voice, turning to another console and moving his long fingers over the controls. 'After the chaos of the virus they were not fully analysed. It's time to do so.'

'Yes, I suppose it is,' Christine said slowly.

It would take the _Enterprise_ ten days to reach their destination at their chosen course and speed. Spock had chosen a low warp speed and a cautious route since it would be near impossible for two people to control the ship properly in the event of an emergency. Those ten days seemed to stretch ahead of Christine like a sentence for an undisclosed crime. There was certainly time for research.

'Shall we take half each?' she asked.

Spock glanced at her. 'I will scan the records considerably faster than you. What you don't complete I will finish.'

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The silence enveloped them. There was no noise but the slight noise of breathing and the clicking and humming of the computers, and behind that the ever-present thrum of the engines. Somehow those small sounds only served to enhance the permeating quiet of the rest of the ship – the absence of voices and footsteps and doors opening and closing.

Christine sat at the communications station in auxiliary control, an earpiece in her ear and her eyes scanning listlessly over written documents as they scrolled up the screen. She had been sat here for hours reading the same things, it seemed – analysis of the rate of planetary breakup, hourly temperature readings, seismological reports. The words began to swim in and out of focus in front of her eyes.

'Miss Chapel.'

She blinked, realising that the warmth of sleep had been creeping over her. Spock had the temperature turned up a little higher than normal, perhaps to counteract the stealing cold of the rest of the ship.

'Miss Chapel,' Spock said in a firmer voice, and she saw that he was holding a blue cup out to her.

'Oh, coffee,' she said in gratitude. 'Thank you, Mr Spock. I needed that.'

'You will also be needing a meal soon,' Spock said as he slipped into the chair next to her.

He was drinking his own cup of coffee, she noticed. It was unusual for Spock to partake of recreational drinks. He must be tired too. She took a sip of the hot black liquid and felt it seep into her body and start to revive her. There was no way, of course, that the caffeine was affecting her yet – but she had always had faith in the power of placebos.

'We'll _both_ be needing something to eat,' she said – and saw Spock's lips press together in a tacit refusal. 'If you don't eat, Mr Spock, your efficiency will start to slip.'

'A Vulcan is quite capable of performing for – ' he began, and she shook her head.

'Twaddle. Perhaps you are if it's necessary – but it isn't necessary. Besides, it's not polite to leave a lady to eat alone.'

Spock tilted his head slightly, and then nodded.

'Your logic is impeccable,' he said.

'Have you found anything?' she asked. She tried not to let the tiredness seep into her voice, but it did.

Spock shook his head. 'Not as yet. Nothing but the expected readings.'

'Have you considered the personal records? Did we pull them with the rest of the data?'

'We pulled everything that was present in the station's computer banks,' Spock said. 'But I hardly see the relevance – '

'We don't know what we're looking for, Mr Spock,' she said. Appellations of rank were fading away from their language in this crew of two, but she could not help but call him _Mr_. 'People record all sorts in their personal logs. Things they wouldn't think to put in the official records, things they were embarrassed about. The kind of feelings that accompanied the on-set of this virus. That's the kind of thing that wouldn't make it into the official logs.'

'That is true,' Spock nodded slowly.

He leant back in his chair for a moment, closing his eyes, a brief look of exhaustion running through him.

Christine turned back to her console, pulling up an alternative set of records. She selected the personal logs of Dr Sita Anhager, for no other reason than that it was the first in the alphabetised list, and began to scan the entries.

'Fifteen days ago, you said,' she murmured, and Spock opened his eyes, focussing on her face. 'The anomaly,' she clarified. 'It passed the planet fifteen days before we arrived – and the station personnel died five days later.'

'Correct,' Spock nodded.

She flicked back through the screens until she hit on the right date, half-murmuring aloud the entries she found.

'Feeling odd… Unaccountably depressed… Station crew irritable. She thought it was just the isolation,' she said, looking up at Spock, and the Vulcan nodded.

She scanned backwards again, letting key words flicker before her vision.

'Archaeological discovery,' she murmured. 'They weren't there for archaeology, were they?' she asked Spock, and then said, 'Oh, it was a hobby of one of the men. So there was a civilisation on the planet, then?'

Spock nodded briefly. 'Some five thousand years prior to this time,' he said. 'The changing climate forced extinction.'

'That anomaly,' Christine said slowly. 'Does it move in a straight line, or is it cyclical?'

Spock turned to the computer, swiftly assessing data.

'It is possible…' he began, and then he looked up, his eyes seeming brighter than before. 'There is a very slight curve to its movement. It is likely that the anomaly started off in orbit of Psi 2000's sun.'

'So it might have passed the planet multiple times?' Christine asked.

'Long ago,' Spock nodded. 'When its orbit was relatively small it would have passed the planet far more frequently. It has likely only recently been released from the gravity of the sun as the sun lost matter and its gravitational attraction weakened.'

'And it would have had exactly the same effect on the planet's inhabitants as it did on the people here?' Christine asked.

Spock caught his breath.

'The Psi 2000 virus was a defence,' he said, as if a light had dawned around him.

'But they died, Mr Spock?'

'They died _after_ the anomaly had passed,' Spock reminded her, his fingers flying over the computer input now, pulling up multiple records. 'Look,' he said, pointing. 'Here, and here. A power cut, they thought. Lights and computers inoperative. It passed, and they dismissed it as unimportant.'

'So they were protected?' Christine asked slowly.

Spock nodded.

'Undoubtedly the originators of the virus had developed an antidote to it, or were immune to some of its effects. It may not even have been a deliberate effort. The virus may have evolved to live with the people in a form of natural selection. Our people had no such immunity.'

'And – we lived because you hadn't taken the antidote,' Christine said, an odd sadness infiltrating her voice. 'Because you hadn't taken it, and you came to my cabin and touched me…'

Spock looked down as if he were embarrassed.

'And we are the only ones left,' he said slowly. 'The knowledge of how we came to survive does not help those who are dead…'

'It might help the people in the path of that anomaly,' she pointed out. 'It might save thousands – millions – of lives.'

'Yes,' Spock said slowly.

She could hear it in his voice – that illogical regret, that piercing knowledge that no matter how many people may be saved by what they had discovered, their friends and colleagues were irrevocably dead.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

How strange this was… Christine would have given anything to share this much time alone with Spock, to eat her meals with him and drink with him without interruption from anyone. But this… This was different. She felt thinned out with grief and tiredness, and Spock was tight and silent with something similar. Her thoughts kept drifting to Leonard, lying there in sickbay, and the captain on the bridge, and all of her friends and colleagues, snuffed out in an instant while she and Spock were spared. The thought of it made bile rise in her throat.

They had eaten, and then they had sat here again in Auxiliary Control going through the records again. Although he looked exhausted Spock seemed to grow no more tired – but Christine could feel herself slowly slipping past the point of being able to function. She looked blearily at the chronometer and saw how late it was, and then fumbled for the switch to turn off her console.

'Mr Spock, medical decision,' she said tiredly. 'I need sleep – and so do you. We can start at this again in the morning. It's not going anywhere.'

Spock looked up at her, seeming startled at her voice after so long of silence.

'I do not need to sleep,' he said after a moment's pause.

'This isn't urgent,' she insisted. 'This isn't anything that can help the crew. It isn't anything that can help anyone until we get to Cymbeline 5 and pass on the data. There's no reason not to sleep.'

Spock stared at her, the tiredness glazing his eyes, and she realised abruptly the only reason why they were both throwing themselves into this work. To stop was to let the thoughts and fears and grief come crowding in. To stop was to allow all those whispering voices in her head to gain new life and torment her with what she had lost.

'Yes,' he said finally. 'Yes, meditation would benefit me.'

He turned off his own console, and then altered some of the settings at the command centre. Christine picked up her cold weather jacket and shouldered it on. She could hardly find the energy to zip it up, but she knew that as soon as she ventured out into the -5 degree corridor she would welcome the insulation. Spock was pulling on his gloves and doing up his own jacket, which he had never taken off. She had ceased to notice the rip in his uniform top.

The corridors were as silent as before, but whatever moisture had been in the air had condensed on the floor and walls and then frozen, lending the curving halls a strange and sparkling appearance that would have been beautiful if it was not there for such an unpleasant reason. Christine walked close beside Spock, but she hesitated as they reached her cabin. The thought of entering her rooms alone and sleeping alone in this ship of the dead caused prickles to move up and down her spine.

Spock looked at her as she hesitated, and in a moment of insight into the frailties of humans said, 'Go and fetch what you need. It will be safer for us to stay together.'

For the first time in hours a smile lit up her face as the relief flooded through her body. She spent very little time in her rooms pushing a few items of clothing into a bag, and then wrapping her blanket about her pillows and putting them under her arm, and then she rejoined Spock in the corridor.

He glanced briefly at her bundle of bedding, and then took it from her wordlessly and continued down the corridor.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

She woke some time in the small hours, in the disorienting surroundings of Spock's red-draped sleeping area. His quarters were hot, as always, and she woke turning fitfully this way and that, a ragged nightmare slipping out of her mind, with sweat slick on her skin. She caught a cry before it could leave her mouth and tried to steady the beating of her heart, remembering in a cold flood just what had happened on the ship to leave her waking up in Spock's bed.

She realised that in her sleep she had pushed her blanket aside and her thin but long nightgown was bunched up about her waist in an unconscious attempt to cool down. She hurriedly straightened it out to cover herself up again, self-consciousness running through her.

She needn't have worried. Spock was not in his sleeping area. As she sat up she saw him on the other side of the partition, sitting up in his desk chair with his back to her. For a moment panic clenched at her heart. What if he was dead too? But as she moved around the partition she saw that he was sitting in meditation, hands steepled before his face, his eyes focussed unseeingly on the point that his fingers made.

'Mr Spock,' she said quietly.

He blinked, and after a moment he lowered his hands and turned to her. He took in her flushed appearance, then said, 'I will turn the heating down. I apologise. It's set for my own comfort.'

'The ship must seem awfully cold to you,' she said, slipping into the chair opposite him.

Spock looked towards the door, and she regretted what she had said as they were both reminded of the frigid morgue that the rest of the ship had become.

'I'm used to it,' he said after a moment's pause.

'I'm sorry,' she said, suddenly awkward. She felt as if she had been made naked by sleep. 'I was getting nightmares.'

Spock's eyebrow rose a tiny amount. 'That fact does not surprise me,' he said. Then he added, 'Go back to bed, Christine. I will turn the heating down.'

How she had longed for him to use her first name. Now it felt like a sliver of kindness offered to her when there was nothing else to give, but no more than that.

'Are you going to sleep?' she asked him, in the tone of a challenge.

'Perhaps later,' he said.

She nodded and stood up, wondering if perhaps he was afraid of sleeping too. His eyes had moved back to his hands, although they were no longer in the meditation position. He seemed to be studying nothing more than the incredible fact that he was alive.

She turned and went silently back to the bed, grateful for the efficiency of the _Enterprise_'s air conditioning. It was already cooling enough in the cabin to allow her to pull the blanket over herself. She needed that shred of comfort.

She was, at least, truly tired, and despite the fears of repeated nightmares she sank back into sleep.

Some time later she stirred, feeling heat at her back, and in the depths of half-sleep she became aware of the Vulcan alongside her in the bed, not touching her, but very close. She turned over with great care and saw him in the glow from his meditation statue, lying in perfect stillness with his eyes almost closed, deep in sleep. He was wearing some kind of long black robe that she had never seen before, and she realised that he was probably cold since turning the heating down for her.

She lay watching him in enraptured fascination, his chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, the dim light casting long shadows of his eyelashes over his cheeks, his lips very slightly parted. The urge was in her to reach out and touch her hand to him, but she kept her arms still, afraid of waking him. A feeling of loneliness arrowed through the centre of her body. This ship was too big to contain just two living souls. No wonder Spock had come into bed here instead of making up somewhere to sleep on the floor.

She swallowed on the grief and fear that were threatening to rise again, and fell back asleep with tears on her cheeks.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

When she woke next Spock's quarters were light, and she was alone in the bed. It was obviously ship's morning, but she had no idea what time it was. Spock, she supposed, worked to an internal sense of time, and needed no clock beside his bed. And what, she thought with a sudden bitterness, did time mean any more, really? They had been flung three days into the past, and whatever time it was now was only time that she had already lived.

'Oh!' she said suddenly, sitting up straight in bed. 'We could call the _Enterprise_, and warn them!'

Spock appeared by the partition between the sleeping and living area. His face looked drawn despite the sleep he had gained, and she wondered briefly if Vulcans suffered from nightmares too.

'Mr Spock, we could call the _Enterprise_,' she began again.

He shook his head. 'I tried some hours ago. The _Enterprise_ of this time frame is not contactable – whether because of the electromagnetic fluctuations of Psi 2000's gravitational field or because of some sabotage associated with the virus, I cannot tell. But they do not respond to hails.'

'Oh,' she said slowly, slumping a little.

'It was a valid thought, Christine,' Spock said softly.

She looked up at him, startled again by his use of her first name.

'There's really no hope, is there?' she asked.

Spock's eyebrow lifted slightly, giving her the impression of a muted, ironic smile. He looked directly at her, and she was struck with the feeling that he was looking straight into her soul.

'There is hope for us,' he said.

'Really?' she asked bleakly. 'What's going to happen to us now? What's going to happen to the _Enterprise_? Will they replace the crew around us, or scrap the ship, or – ?'

'It would be illogical to scrap the ship,' Spock said instantly. 'There is nothing wrong with it. But – I imagine that we will be reassigned.'

'To different ships,' Christine said slowly.

Spock sat down beside her on the bed. His entire body seemed to be rigidly holding in some kind of suppressed energy.

'Perhaps to different ships,' he said. 'Would you regret that?'

She smiled through nascent tears. 'You are the only thing left of my life here, Mr Spock. And – that stupid virus made me tell you how I feel about you. So you can understand why I would regret never seeing you again. I've already lost – '

No. She stopped herself. This was no time to start talking about how she had already lost Roger to space's infinite dangers. Spock did not seem interested in her cut-off sentence, anyway. He was just sitting there, looking at her face, an indefinable expression in his eyes. Was it perhaps that he –

She shook herself out of her delusions. The only time Spock had expressed an interest in her was in the delusion of the Psi 2000 virus.

'I suppose we should get on with our research,' she said tiredly.

'I have breakfast waiting for you,' Spock said, with that strange, open expression in his eyes again. 'I've been waiting for you to wake up.'

'Oh,' she said in surprise at his thoughtfulness. 'Thank you. I'll – If you give me a few minutes to get dressed, I'll come and eat.'

Spock nodded, gesturing towards the bathroom in a silent invitation for her to use that room. She gathered up her clothes, feeling curiously naked beneath her thin nightgown, and slipped into the bathroom, the Vulcan's eyes following her all the way to the door.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

She stood in the bathroom before the mirror, thinking of Roger, who she had fallen in love with long ago. She imagined him standing there behind her, as he had in the past, his hands on her shoulders, watching her in the mirror. Should she feel guilty for the slowly creeping obsession with Spock that had overwhelmed her entirely? Roger was dead – almost certainly he was dead. She had promised herself she would never give up hope, but perhaps a part of her had given up, and she had turned to Spock and seen something deeper and finer in him.

_Roger…_

The thought of him drifted in her mind. Finally she shook away the image of a ghost and saw only herself in the mirror, tired and with yesterday's makeup smudged on her face. She couldn't be bothered standing here and adorning herself and arranging her hair, despite the fact that she had brought her makeup bag. She washed her face clean and left it like that, fresh and honest, and then brushed out her hair until her scalp tingled. She stood regarding herself again, in her uniform despite the fact that there was barely a crew any more. Her eyes looked strange without mascara and eye shadow to enhance them, and un-styled her hair looked grey rather than silver. But it didn't matter. There was no one but Spock to see, and Spock would not care about surface aesthetics. She smoothed her hand over her hair, and went back into Spock's rooms.

The Vulcan looked up at her, his expression momentarily startled. And then he gestured towards a tray on the desk which held muesli and orange juice, and asked, 'Would you prefer tea or coffee with your breakfast?'

She smiled. She almost wanted to laugh at the ridiculous mundanity of it. But she recovered herself and said soberly, 'Coffee, please. I need something to wake up my mind.'

Spock regarded her, his eyes hovering on her longer than was strictly necessary.

'Oh, don't stare at me – I look a mess!' she protested.

'Untrue,' Spock said smoothly. 'I was thinking how simplicity suits you.'

And then he turned to the replicator in the corner and slipped the disc for coffee into the slot. Christine sat at the desk and began to pick at her food, musing on the strangeness of her situation again. Later they would have to don their cold weather gear and venture out into the corridors again, and risk coming across a body, frozen now instead of just softly dead. If she could have stayed in Spock's rooms forever, she would.

She glanced up at him. There was a slight tension in his back as he stood waiting for the coffee. The tendons in his neck were more pronounced than usual, and the hand that he held out to the replicator was clenching and unclenching in a most human fashion. No matter how strong Vulcan stoicism could make him, she knew that he was deeply bothered by what had happened. More than once in the night she had been half aware of him stirring in his sleep.

_How hard it must be for you_, she thought slowly. _How hard it must be to gain friends – and then to lose _everyone_ like this…_

'We'll be all right,' she found herself saying. 'We'll work something out.'

He turned to her, coffee in hand, an odd expression on his face.

'Perhaps,' he said, putting the cup down in front of her.

She smiled bleakly at him. Death was insurmountable… Perhaps…


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Hours had never seemed to drag before as they did now. She and Spock moved their research from Auxiliary Control to the labs, where the cavernous emptiness of the ship was even more apparent. She found herself missing the intimate smallness of Auxiliary.

Despite the best efforts of the ship's temperature control system, it was constantly cold in the labs. The space was too large, and every time the door opened a new gust of cold dropped into the room. She was uncertain as to why Spock had to leave the room quite so often – but she wondered gradually if it was simply his inability to sit immobile in the presence of another with the grief that must be eating at his control.

Damn it, she was probably projecting waves of it. Her mind had become her own enemy. She wandered to thoughts of sitting in the rec room, Spock's lyre sounding through the air and Uhura's voice rising up in songs old and new. That graceful, sassy, confident voice… How could it be dead?

Spock's finger tapped on her console and she jumped, refocusing on the data. She had been trying to find all she could about the archaeology of Psi 2000 before her mind drifted away. That silent admonishment reminded her of being in school.

'This,' Spock said from behind her shoulder, leaning close to her. Perhaps it had not been an admonishment after all. He tapped his finger to one of the many photograph thumbnails on the screen. 'Some kind of glass vessel. It could have been a sample container.'

She stared at the screen, at the image of a container lying half buried in soil, its glass surfaces fogged and dirtied beyond all clarity. She opened up the link and studied it more closely.

'It broke when he was lifting it,' she said, reading the text beneath the picture. 'He was wearing cold weather gear, but the glass nicked his glove.'

'Did he determine what it was he was excavating?' Spock asked.

She shook her head. 'He hadn't got far. He wasn't sure. A kitchen, a lab, a clinic, a shop.'

'Possible medical uses,' Spock nodded. 'Then in all probability the jar contained a sample of the virus, and introduced the infection to the members of the research outpost.'

'That's speculation,' she murmured.

'Perhaps,' Spock nodded. 'But it is valid.'

'Yes,' she said tiredly. 'Yes, it is valid. But – '

'But?' he prompted her after her silence dragged out for too long.

'I'm – just not sure of the point,' she admitted. 'We know they were infected. Does it matter how, or when, or – '

Spock slipped into the chair next to her. 'Would you suggest we stop this research?' he asked. 'Return to my quarters and wait for the ship to reach Cymbeline 5?'

She shuddered. The thought of sitting doing nothing for these long, lonely days was horrible to her.

'Precisely,' Spock said, reading her expression. 'Besides, I have been considering – '

And then he trailed off. Christine looked at him, startled. It was unlike Spock to not complete a thought.

'Considering what?' she asked.

He exhaled, shaking his head. In the cold air his breath was hot, and smelt faintly of cinnamon. Even at moments like this she found herself gravitating towards the hot beauty of his body.

She closed her eyes and opened them again, trying to push her attraction to him out of her mind. It didn't matter any more. Soon they would be on different ships. Perhaps they would never see each other again.

But then – his hand was touching hers, his eyes dark with some suppressed emotion. Still he had not completed his sentence, and she yearned to know what it was that he didn't feel able to say.

'What is it?' she asked him curiously. 'Spock?'

His eyes met hers, and she was struck with the certainty that he meant to kiss her. But he didn't move forward, and she did not dare initiate the move. Finally he withdrew his hand and sat, his finger rubbing across his chin in a gesture of which Christine was almost certain he was unconscious.

'All things that could happen _are_ happening at the same time,' he said, his eyes not focussed on her now, but on some other place not in this room.

'I beg your pardon?' she said. The sigh of disappointment inside her was effaced by her curiosity. It was obvious that there was something momentous occurring in Spock's mind.

He looked back at her.

'A twentieth-century physicist, Dr Neil Johnson, said _all things that could happen are happening at the same time.'_

'So – the _Enterprise_ could be out there, somewhere, with everyone on it alive?' she asked, a spark of hope beginning somewhere deep inside.

'The _Enterprise_ is, in fact, out there with everyone on it alive – perhaps with the exception of Joseph Tormolen,' Spock said. 'In our present time, the _Enterprise_ is still in orbit of Psi 2000. The quantum field would also suppose that there are infinite plains upon which the _Enterprise_ does or does not exist, fulfilling every possibility that may exist. But – it is the existence of the _Enterprise_ on _this_ plain that concerns me. In travelling back through time we have created a paradox, Christine. We exist simultaneously on the same plain with ourselves. This ship, these people aboard, dead or alive, should not be here alongside our original selves.'

Christine blinked, shaking her head with an apologetic smile.

'I'm a humble biologist, Mr Spock. Quantum physics always went over my head a little.'

He cocked an eyebrow. 'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'You don't need to understand the theory. But – we are working within a paradox. The laws of physics, the laws of time, such as we understand them, do not apply as we would expect them to.'

'You have an idea,' she said. 'I'm happy not understanding it as long as you do. It's bound to be valid.'

Humour sparkled in his eyes. 'I am grateful for your confidence in me, Christine,' he said. 'But – my idea is not an attractive one. It – will require a good deal of bravery on your part.'

She looked around the empty room, thinking about the death that surrounded them both. It was hard to imagine a path that would be worse than the one they were already following.

'Your idea is bound to be valid,' she said again. 'I trust you, Mr Spock. I would follow you into hell if you told me we'd come out safely the other side.'

'And if I told you we would _not_ come out safely?' he asked her softly. There was a great sadness in his eyes.

'I – don't understand,' she said slowly, suddenly feeling scared. Spock was under strain – she knew that – but it was hard to imagine what might cause such a depth of feeling in him.

'We have approximately twenty four hours before the _Enterprise_ utilises implosion in order to restart the warp engines and in consequence of that action travels three days back in time. _That_ _Enterprise_ will follow our course – it will enter the cloud, the crew will die, it will result in this situation we are in now.'

Christine rubbed her hands over her face.

'I don't know that I'll ever understand time travel,' she said.

'I am not certain that the human brain has the capacity to do so,' Spock said honestly. 'The logic – and illogic – of the situation is – difficult – for my own mind to comprehend. Christine, what I am proposing will result in our deaths. Both of us. But for the other _Enterprise_ – that _Enterprise_ that is now moving towards implosion and time travel and encountering the anomaly that killed the crew – it will mean life. Do you understand that?'

'I – think so,' she said slowly.

There was a knife of panic pushing into her mind. Death. She had faced death many times, but mostly through seeing others pass through its boundary. She didn't want to die…

'Christine,' Spock said, and his hand touched hers again, enfolding it this time in his fingers. The heat of his body was startling. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

She smiled, realising that tears were beginning to form in her eyes. She didn't want to die. But worse than that, she could not stand to think of Spock, of his whole and beautiful body and mind, dying alongside her.

'Is it something I can do alone?' she asked him unsteadily.

A hint of a smile twitched the corner of his mouth.

'If it was something that could be done alone I would not have mentioned it to you,' he said honestly. 'I would have put you on a shuttlecraft and sent you to safety.'

'I wouldn't – ' she began.

'You would not have the choice,' he said in a voice like steel. 'My knowledge of medicine is quite sufficient that I could have rendered you safely unconscious for long enough for me to achieve my plan.'

She swallowed, the meaning behind his words resonating through her. Spock would die to save her life. _Oh, God, I don't want to die when all my hopes have just been brought to life_, she thought uncontrollably.

Aloud, she said, 'How soon?'

'Not immediately,' he reassured her. 'I need to calculate implosion again. We must retrace our course back to the anomaly in time as well as space.'

'You mean – you're going to deliberately recreate the implosion that brought us back in time in the first place?' she asked him in wonder.

He nodded. 'We must destroy the anomaly _before_ the other ship reaches it. That lies in our past as well as theirs. But having achieved the effect once I am confident I can replicate it with more precision. We will have enough power to get to the anomaly just a few hours before the other ship enters its boundaries. But, Christine – ' He took her hands again in his, his fingertips moving lightly over her knuckles. 'In doing this, we will be the last killed by the anomaly. Afterwards, it will cease to exist.'

'What are you going to do?' she asked him.

'The cloud is negative energy,' he said. 'If we were to cause an explosion in the centre of the cloud of corresponding positive energy, it should destroy it.'

'But – how can we get anything to the centre of the cloud and make it explode?' she asked. 'The cloud kills anything with positive energy. It would kill us. It would kill all power in the ship.'

Spock bit his lip into his mouth. She was sure that he was unaware that he was doing it. And then he said, 'Certain chemical reactions may still function. If I set the correct charge in the warp reactors the initial explosion should create a sufficient bubble of normal space to allow a cascade reaction to set up. Eventually there should be enough space-normal about the warp reactors to allow the ship itself to explode.'

'With us on it,' Christine said slowly.

'With us on it,' Spock nodded. 'It is necessary. From that point the path of this timeline will have been altered. This version of the _Enterprise_ will be destroyed, and that other version of the _Enterprise_ will continue in its course, with _us_ upon it. Our other selves. All will be as it should be, and – '

'And they'll all be alive,' Christine said slowly. 'Len, and Nyota, and – '

'And James Kirk,' Spock nodded, a certain wistfulness entering his tone. 'And you, and me.'

'But – the cloud will kill us as we enter it,' she repeated. 'We need to be alive to set the explosion…'

'There are still samples of the Psi 2000 virus held here in the labs,' Spock said solemnly. 'We can re-infect ourselves.'

'We'll need to do that pretty soon,' she pointed out. 'We need to be sure that the virus takes hold.'

Spock nodded. 'We must attempt implosion as soon as possible. Then I intend to build a chemical bomb and set it in the warp chamber. We need our minds to be clear for that. When that is done, we can re-infect ourselves. We will be on something of a knife edge – the sickness must have progressed enough to protect us, but we must be lucid. At the point we need to set the explosion we will be working in the dark, without sensors or any other instruments. We will be absolutely blind.'

'Then – we need to get started,' Christine said, letting the definite practicality of what needed to be done drive the fear out of her mind. 'The sooner the better.'

'Yes,' Spock said – but he did not move. His fingers were still closed about hers, the heat of him pulsing against her skin. She could feel – was it possible she could feel, though the contact, a slew of regret?

She looked up, opening her lips to speak, but before she could he nodded, and said, 'Yes, Christine.' He tilted her head in something like apology, and said, 'It's tiring sometimes keeping barriers raised against the sharing of thought.'

She felt something again – the great tiredness that was pressing down through his shoulders and spine, a tiredness built up from layer upon layer of guilt and grief and loss.

'There's no need for guilt,' she said softly.

She knew from where his guilt was sourced. He had not taken the cure for the virus. He had been distracted – distracted, worst of all, by his desire to seek her out and speak to her. Because of his distraction he had not steered the ship – _his_ ship almost as much as the captain's – away from the anomaly that had killed the crew.

'There's no need for guilt,' she repeated, leaning closer this time with a reckless realisation that it did not matter any more – that within a day they would both be dead, and she had nothing more to lose.

As her lips touched his she felt the unleashing of feeling that was like an explosion, through her fingers where they touched his, striking up her arms and blossoming through her mind. There was a mental sigh in Spock's thoughts as he fell into her acceptance and her forgiveness, the heat of his lips yearning towards hers as if he wanted to consume her.

'Oh god,' she murmured as she drew away, tears stinging her eyes again. 'I'm sorry. I'm taking advantage…'

His hands on her arms gripped so tightly that it was on the edge of pain. He pulled her back towards him, a recklessness that echoed her own suddenly showing in his eyes. He kissed her again, his hands slipping about her back and cradling over her shoulder blades, his fingers pressing into her skin.

'Christine, I am sorry, I am sorry,' he murmured, close to her ear.

His hands were tracing across her back, skimming the fabric of her cold weather jacket, and then pushing up under it to move across the thinner skin of cloth that made up her uniform dress. His fingers were pressing against her skin as if he wanted to force his apology into her body, as if only by such a forceful contact would she understand the meaning of his words.

She found the courage to reach out, pushing her own hands beneath his jacket and feeling the muscles of his back, so slight but so strong in the Vulcan way. The heat between the two layers of clothes was like thrusting her hands into an oven.

Her head was pressed alongside his as he breathed his words into her ear, the scent of him crowding about her. She didn't know what he was saying any more. She just knew that she wanted to be part of him, and that her skin against his was not close enough. She had the urge to rip his uniform top apart again, as she had done so many hours ago in his quarters.

It was too cold for removing any layers of clothes. The ship was too full of death for this brilliant, heart-racing celebration of life to be happening in this room. It was all too, too wrong – and she had no idea how it happened that she found herself on the floor, her jacket thrown aside and her dress half unzipped and her lungs heaving chill air into her body as she fought to not lose herself entirely. She saw Spock, another person entirely from the controlled and contained bridge officer, with his hair mussed by her hands and his own clothes more than a little disarranged, coming to kneel over her, stripping his top off despite the cold.

A half-whimper left her mouth at the sight of him, his clothes peeling from him like a ripened fruit. What was happening? What on earth was happening here to take her from one moment being on the edge of the decision to die, to now being here, her back against the carpet of the lab floor, with Spock coming down hot and hard over her and finding every inch of her with his hands as if by touching her it would keep her alive?

It was the end of time… He had nothing left to lose, no dignity to retain, nothing to hide any more. It was not the Psi 2000 virus that finally unlocked him – it was grief, and the certainty of death.

He lay over her, finally spent, his breath hot and slow against her neck as he regained control of his body. Her hands were on his back, soft against his skin, his heart thudding under her fingers. The feeling of him was like a heavy press of security against her lungs, the feeling of him inside her and the shivers that still ran through her a perfect affirmation of what had just happened.

She heard his intake of breath, and she said furiously, 'Don't you dare tell me you're sorry again, mister. Don't you dare. Regret what you like, but don't regret that.'

His breath caught, and he sighed.

'Vulcan dignity would demand that I apologise for taking advantage of your vulnerability,' he said.

'And what about _your_ vulnerability?' she asked, feeling the heat of him pressed against her at her breasts and hips, his feet entangled with hers. She had never imagined seeing him like this.

He rolled away from her and sat beside her, his eyes focussed more on the floor than on her face.

'_My_ vulnerability should not be an issue,' he said heavily. 'I have a task to perform.'

She sat up, putting herself on the same level as him, finding the courage to lift his chin with her hand, ignoring the sudden cold on her naked skin.

'We _will_ do it,' she promised him. 'But _this – _this moment – is a gift to us both. Don't say that you regret it.'

He shook his head, finally looking into her eyes.

'No, Christine,' he said. 'I have harboured that urge for – some time. If you are content, I don't regret it.'

'And the, _I am sorry_?' she asked him.

'We neither of us have a future,' he said softly. 'In that other place, I can't commit to you. I can't commit to you as a Vulcan should. There are – ties, connections – too many things standing in our way.'

She nodded, thinking of Roger somewhere, stranded on an unknown planet, waiting for her without a thought that she had betrayed him. She understood ties.

'But here,' she continued for him. 'We have everything, and nothing.'

He acknowledged that truth with a slight sigh and a nod of the head. He reached out, touching his hand to her face, his arm still trembling slightly from holding himself over her.

'Here, we are all that exists,' he said.

He stood, reaching out a hand to her to help her up, and then looking down without apparent embarrassment at his half-naked body.

'Let's clean up,' he said quietly. 'And then – we have work to do.'


	6. Chapter 6

6.

Dressed, recomposed, his hands steadier than ever, Spock spoke very little about what had happened. But there was a warmth in his eyes when he looked at Christine that made her feel warmer still.

The recreation of the implosion was almost a non-event. Spock made the calculations with typical swiftness, they approached a star in order to make use of its gravitational pull, and the stopping and re-starting of the warp engines was managed between Spock and the ship's computers. Christine's part in it was carefully manning navigation to be sure that their course and speed was correct – but she had very little to do besides holding on to the shuddering console and watching numbers scroll by. Spock's calculations were perfect as ever, and they found themselves drifting and slewing through space, near that dark blot over the stars, and a precise number of hours back in time.

Christine had given up trying to understand the looping and coiling of time. She pushed all thoughts of implosion and slingshots out of her head. Instead she let the memory hover in her mind of making love to the Vulcan against the rough carpet of the lab floor, using the remembrance as a blanket to calm and steady her in the face of what must happen.

She stood now at a table at the side of the lab, preparing the virus for their re-infection. Two hypos sat side by side on the surface, and she carefully measured the doses into capsules, and attached them to the ends. She stared at the clear liquid, wondering what insanity might take seed in her mind this time. What emotions would be unleashed in them as they prepared for death?

She thought of that place on the lab floor where Spock had lain over her, and a half-smile touched her mouth. That hadn't been the result of any virus. Fear and hopelessness may have played a part, but there had been no external influence in Spock's mind when he had taken that decision. Perhaps, for once, she had glimpsed the real Spock, naked beneath his veneer of control.

She looked over at the Vulcan. He was staring intently at a computer screen, formulae running past his eyes faster than a human could follow. She could see the tension building in him again. He was making notes on a padd, his fingers tight about the stylus and his shoulders growing more rigid by the minute.

As she came to stand behind him, he laid his hand over the face of the padd.

'The executioner's hood,' she murmured unconsciously.

Spock's knuckles went white as he clenched his hand about the padd.

'Oh, god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that – ' she began in a rush. 'I really didn't mean that you – '

Spock looked around at her, his eyes bright with some repressed thought.

'I _will_ be our executioner,' he said steadily. 'And – I do not want you to see the formula.'

She put her hand on his shoulder and felt him _almost_ flinch away, and then relax into her touch.

'You're not executing anyone,' she said. 'You're resurrecting us all.'

Spock shook his head. 'Perhaps so,' he said, turning back to the padd.

'Have you worked out what you need to do?' she asked him quietly.

'Almost,' Spock said reluctantly. 'There will be no way of testing the effects. We won't have time for tests once we're in the anomaly.'

'No, I guess not,' Christine said, unable to stop the shiver that came over her at that thought.

_I don't want to die in the dark_, was the illogical thought that slipped into her mind. She let her eyes rest on the graceful taper of Spock's ear, and the short, dark strands of hair that lay sleekly over his scalp. From her position behind him she could see only that, and the angle of his cheekbone. His eyes were hidden by the tilt of his head, and she was overcome with a need to look into them and connect with whatever was passing within his mind.

As if he had understood her urge he turned again and looked up at her. She fell into the depths of his eyes, stopping herself from moving forward physically. After what had happened, she wanted to just lie with him, so close that she could smell the scent of his skin and his breath. Time seemed an impossibly cruel thing. There was so little time left to them both…

'Have you prepared the virus?' Spock asked her.

His voice startled her out of her self-absorption.

'It's all done,' she nodded, inclining her head towards the vials on the table. 'As soon as you're ready I'll give us the shots. We've got a two hour window for the incubation period to be right.'

Spock nodded, his eyes on the computer screen again as if he were confirming what was on it before his thoughts became distorted by the virus.

'I'm ready,' he said, making a final note on his padd. 'My calculations are complete. It's only necessary to build the device now.'

She looked across at the hypos.

'Well – I'll do it now, then,' she said, with growing reluctance. The injecting with the virus felt like the beginning of the end.

She went and picked up the hypos and returned to Spock's side, weighing the dull metal instruments in her hand. She didn't want to do this… She didn't want to unravel her thoughts in her last hours of life.

'Spock,' she began hesitantly.

'Mmm,' he said, his eyes focussed intently on the computer.

'Spock, do you – regret anything?' she asked him quietly.

He looked up at her, apparently startled by the question.

'Vulcans do not indulge in regret,' he said, looking at her steadily.

'Then,' she began, her eyes moving to that place on the floor where he had lain over her and made love to her with such unVulcan – or perhaps such _Vulcan_ – passion.

'No,' he said softly, shaking his head. There was a depth of honesty in his eyes that made tears come into hers. 'I don't regret that. It was – long overdue, I might say.'

She smiled suddenly, then looked at the hypos in her hand. Time was slipping away. She held one out towards Spock, and he nodded. He did not flinch as she depressed the trigger against his arm and the virus was reintroduced to his bloodstream. She turned the second hypo on herself, bracing herself for the slight sting as the dose was pressured through her skin.

'Well,' she said slowly. 'I guess we're set.'

Spock nodded silently. She wondered if his apprehension at the virus might be greater than hers. Emotionally, he had far more to lose. As a human, she was used to her emotions being viewed stripped down and naked.

'Why did you wait?' she asked him, slipping into the chair beside him.

Tentatively she reached out for his hand. Despite what had occurred in this room she did not feel that she had permission to take him as hers. But he turned his hand over and allowed her to put her fingers in his. He seemed absorbed in studying her fingernails and the shapes of her fingers, stroking his own two forefingers over hers as if in some kind of ritual.

'Why did you have to wait?' she asked him again, a deeper note of sadness entering her voice. 'Why wait until now, when there's nothing left?'

He looked up at her, shrugging minutely.

'I've explained,' he said. 'There are reasons why I cannot commit to you – too many reasons. Vulcan passion is deeply felt, beneath our skin of logic. It wouldn't be fair to you to offer you something that could not possibly last. And – it would not be fair to me, either.'

She sighed, thinking of rankings and postings and the braid on the cuffs of Spock's tunic and his position on this ship that meant at any time he would give up his life for those around him. Of course he could not commit. It was stupid to think that he would. And then there was Roger, out there somewhere. She was engaged, and she was ready to throw away those years of close companionship for a relationship that could not possibly have a future.

'Well, I guess there's some good in all this,' she said bleakly. 'If dying means that we can have this, however briefly.'

'However briefly,' Spock repeated, the stroking of his fingers becoming firmer still on hers.

Abruptly she felt a shiver of electricity that ran from her fingertips, through the pit of her stomach and her breasts and between her legs, awakening a yearning in her that she thought had already been satiated. She looked up at him, startled eyes meeting his, and he seemed to smile despite the fact that his expression did not change.

'Then it is possible, with a human,' he murmured.

'Possible?' she echoed – and then realised that his lips had not moved as he spoke, and his voice had been entirely within her own mind. Her breath seemed to be snatched from her lungs as she realised that Spock was _within her mind_…

'I have never touched a human's mind before,' he said, withdrawing from her thoughts as suddenly as he had entered.

Christine's lips parted. She felt suddenly bereft, as if a great warmth and wisdom had slipped away from her. That feeling – that shivering, sharp feeling in her body that made her yearn for intimacy – was the Vulcan's passion, perhaps, shivering through her own body.

'I didn't know it was possible,' he said slowly, stilling his fingertips and letting them rest softly on hers.

'Perhaps lots of things are possible that you've never allowed for,' Christine said with a sad smile. She could spend years in that immense and many-layered mind. If only she had the time left… 'But – we need to get to make that explosive,' she said abruptly, moving her hand away from his.

Spock nodded silently. It was strange that she was the one to recall him to logic – but she had noticed before that it was often the womenfolk who recalled men to practicality. Perhaps Spock was not so different to a man after all.

'Yes,' he said with obvious reluctance. 'Or, rather, _I_ need to make that explosive. There's no need for your assistance at this point, Christine.'

'Oh, I'd rather help you – ' she began.

'I would rather you did not,' he said firmly, and she was reminded of his hand descending so firmly over the equations on the padd.

'All right,' she nodded. 'In that case – I'm going to pop down to my quarters for a little while. There's – some loose ends I need to tie up.'

Spock regarded her, and then nodded, unquestioning. He turned back to the padd on the desk with a finality that left her feeling briefly rejected. This was how it would be, she supposed. If she were in a relationship with Spock she would have to grow used to the social garnishes being dropped in favour of logic.

That didn't mean she had to drop them herself. She touched her fingers briefly to the top of his head – and then dared to kiss the place she had touched, swiftly and softly, before leaving the room.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

It seemed that many hours had passed when Spock called her to the engine room, but in reality not more than three had gone by. When she had finished those necessary tasks in her quarters, Christine had sat in solitude and silence, her eyes on those things that she loved and were familiar to her, trying to reconcile herself to her impending fate. It was not easy. The second hand on her antique clock seemed to resonate with each jerk forward. Time was tangible. She could feel it moving past her like a river, and try as she might to stop it with her outstretched fingers, it kept on moving, slow and deliberate. In some ways the slowness was a worse torture.

She walked down to Engineering with building trepidation. They had largely avoided encountering bodies in their trips from Spock's quarters to the labs, but now it was inevitable. The corridors down to the engine room were scattered with tumbled, stiff, frosted forms, and she walked the chill halls with her head held upright and her eyes fixed above the level of the floor, trying to avoid the frozen faces of people that she knew.

She stood in the doorway to Engineering, hesitating on the threshold. There was a burnt and gaping hole in the wall next to the door, and the door itself was fixed open. _Of course, Mr Scott,_ she remembered. She had heard something about Scotty having to cut the door open to get in to restart the engines, to cause the implosion that had ricocheted them back through time and into this mess…

She felt a moment of bitterness towards Kevin Riley that began to well up through her chest – and then it was pushed aside in the shocked remembrance that Riley was dead, and Scotty was dead, and everyone…

_Oh, God…_

She pushed the thought of them out of her mind. She had to. Thinking about them was no help.

Spock had gone some way to making Engineering a less traumatic place to be. He had moved the bodies, evidently. At least, there were none in sight. Christine could not be sure if the act had been in deference to her human sensibilities, or to make his own working conditions less unpleasant.

Even Spock's face was muffled in the -5 conditions as he knelt near the partition that separated the main room from the engines. A cold-weather jacket was still distorting his figure and his hands were hidden in gloves. He looked heart-wrenchingly anonymous as Christine entered the room, although she too was muffled in thick clothes.

The warp chamber had been taken over by Spock's self-made explosive. The bomb itself sat in the centre of the chamber, behind the protective grill – a strangely mundane looking silver drum amid the dull red pulsing of the engines. But from the drum led a spidering confusion of pipes, apparently linking it to multiple points in the chamber. She wondered briefly whether Spock had bothered to don a radiation suit to fix the device in position, or whether he had dispensed with safety precautions as a mere formality in the face of their impending death.

She took a step forward, and Spock turned at the noise of her boots on the hard floor.

'Is it done?' she asked him tentatively.

'Just about,' he said.

His voice sounded curiously emotional, his breathing ragged.

'Mr Spock, are you – ' she began, instinctively reaching for her medical scanner.

'The virus,' he confirmed, standing up to face her and pushing aside the scarf that he had wrapped about his mouth and nose. He looked as if he were struggling to keep some kind of emotion inside.

She nodded, seeing the corresponding readings on her scanner. His heart rate was up, his brain activity close on feverish. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was this heightened mental activity that provided protection from the negative energy of the anomaly. There was no time to investigate further, though, and no point in garnering information that no one would ever see. She closed her hand about the scanner and slipped it back into her pocket.

'Are you able to function?' she asked him, coming closer.

He nodded, biting his lip back into his mouth unconsciously.

'It's taking – effort – to control,' he said, 'but I am managing.'

'How long do we have?' she asked quietly.

Spock glanced at the assembled bomb in the warp chamber.

'Approximately thirty-two minutes before we enter the anomaly. I believe we should wait ten more minutes before detonating the bomb – and the ship.'

'And that will destroy the anomaly?' she asked.

'It should,' Spock said. 'We will never know.'

Christine shuddered, dropping her eyes from his face. That death in the absolute, silent dark… She didn't think she could face that sudden, ripping, violent death. She could feel hysteria growing inside her, a crystalline growth that threatened to take over her mind.

'Christine,' Spock said softly, and she became aware that she had thrown off her gloves and was rubbing her itching hands against each other with increasing frenzy.

'It's the virus,' she said tiredly. 'I know, it's the virus. I know none of it's real…'

She exhaled, making an attempt to clamp down on the growing panic.

'Christine,' Spock said again.

He had taken his own gloves off, and was touching his hand to her face. Despite his warm clothes his fingers felt like ice on her skin. She almost flinched away, but a needling, questioning feeling in her mind stopped her.

_Christine_, he said – and she knew that this time he was in her mind. She could feel waves of steadying calm somehow lapping against her own thoughts – but behind them she knew there was a dark current of something far more uncontrollable than her own panic. Spock's disciplines were serving him admirably, but beneath the veneer was a churning sea of doubt. She leant her mind into his, letting her own reassurance and forgiveness settle his thoughts.

_It's vital we stay sane,_ ran from her mind into his. _It's vital we stay sane. We have to set the bomb_.

Spock closed his eyes, leaning now with his forehead against hers, his fingers still against her cheek. She could feel him sinking into a space of meditative quiet, ordering his thoughts and controlling the wayward emotions that threatened to control him.

Finally he pulled away, just far enough to touch his lips to hers in a very human kiss. Then he touched his fingers to hers again, in what she now knew was something akin to a _Vulcan_ kiss. She could feel the tension running through his hands, and knew that that maddening itching was setting up on his palms and between his fingers, just as it was on her.

'You need to tell me what to do,' she said, looking towards the sleek metal drum in the warp chamber. 'Do we need to be in there?'

Spock shook his head. 'No. It is nothing more than pulling that rope,' he said, nodding towards a rope that was attached to the drum, and threaded through the partition onto the floor where he had been kneeling when she came in. 'That will remove a division in the drum and allow the chemicals to mix. The resultant explosion will set off further explosions about the warp chamber, and finally cause the engines themselves to explode.'

'Just – pull that rope?' she asked. It seemed ridiculously simple.

'That is all,' he nodded. 'Should one of us be too far affected by the virus, or by the anomaly, the other must do it.'

'How much time?' she asked again.

'Five minutes,' he said, and she looked up, startled. Touching Spock's mind must have sucked up time, or made it meaningless. She had no idea so much time had passed since she entered the room.

'Okay,' she said, pushing down on the panic again. She had to control herself. The panic was good – it showed that the virus had taken full hold – but still, she had to, _had to_, control.

'Come,' Spock said quietly, and he walked with her over to the rope, and sat down on the floor. 'Our hands should be on it,' he said. 'It will be dark when the time comes.'

She nodded, sinking down beside him, suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that he had unbent far enough to allow closeness between them. To be here with him, but isolated from him by logic and awkwardness, would be unbearable.

She leant close to him, letting her head touch his shoulder.

'Here,' he said, lifting the rope. She put her hands about it, intertwined with his own gripping hands. Thoughts began to race through her mind – thoughts of the hangman's noose, of ropes used to lash and bind and stifle the life from people.

'It will be all right,' Spock said, in response to the strange involuntary noise that began in her throat. Tears were pricking at the back of her eyes.

'It will be all right,' Spock said again, and she almost laughed. Everything was the opposite of all right.

Somehow he moved his arms around her, picking her up and moving her onto his lap so that she was leant back against his chest. He resettled his hands about hers on the rope, his head close against the side of her own and the warmth of his body pressing heat into hers. She thought of that short mindless time, lying on the floor in the labs, with his part naked body over hers and the grief and horror of the last few days lost in the wordless ecstasy of their coming together. She could weep for everything they had shared, and everything they had not the chance to share.

'I love you, Mr Spock' she said in a voice thick with emotion.

Spock hesitated for the shortest time – and then he said, 'I love you too, Christine. It has never been otherwise.'

The room went black.

Her grateful response to Spock's words were lost in the sudden strangeness of the complete absence of noise from the ship. The engines had died as if a plug had been pulled.

She could feel Spock behind her, still breathing, his heart still beating and tangible in the tiny pulses in his hands against hers. When everything else was dead the living body was like a planet in a vacuum. She leant harder against him, and heard his breath catch.

'Ten minutes,' she said, her voice loud against the silence.

She felt him nod, his cheek moving against the side of her head.

'Ten minutes,' he repeated.

His hands tightened a little over hers. She turned her head, finding his lips again with hers.

'You're all right,' she breathed after the kiss. 'Will you be all right?'

'Until the end,' he nodded, his voice vibrating through his chest and into hers.

She closed her eyes against the darkness, and leaned into his body. He was like an anchor behind her, keeping the growing panic from taking over her mind.

'Five minutes,' he said in a low voice, after what seemed like a long time of sitting in silence. And then it was, 'Two minutes,' and 'One minute,' and then he was counting down, slow and steady, 'Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one,' and together they pulled on the rope in their hands.

The last thing that Christine Chapel heard was her name being spoken low and soft in her ear, and then the space around her erupted in an explosion so fast and bright she had not time to think, or even to feel the pain of the ending.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

Spock's skin was hot under her hand, his heart thudding under his ribs with unusual speed. She knelt beside him where he had fallen, assessing his condition swiftly, her concern making her heart beat almost as fast as his.

'Spock,' she said sharply. 'Mr Spock!'

Blood was oozing from a cut on his head. He must have hit that plant pot near the door as he fell.

'Three days,' he murmured, his head moving listlessly. 'Three days… Course and speed… Christine…'

'I don't understand,' she said, bewildered.

She started to stand but his hand clenched about hers, stopping her from rising. She had never seen Spock sweat, but now his fingers were slick. Something seemed to tingle between them – some residue of that touch of a few minutes ago, as if electricity were vibrating from his skin into hers. He had been so close to – to what? Confessing his love? Confessing his inability to love? To peeling the clothes from her and –

No. His collapse had put an end to whatever thoughts or desires had been running through his head. There was no point in thinking about it. She had to concentrate on that cut, and his racing heartbeat, and whatever it was he was trying to tell her now.

'Seventy-one hours ago,' he murmured, 'on our current flight path… There was – '

And suddenly she remembered. What was it? Some anomaly? Something about a dark mass, or an interstellar dust cloud? Damn it, she couldn't remember. Something that had coalesced in that vicinity and then dispersed. A scientific curiosity…

The ship rocked abruptly, as if it had been caught in an ocean undertow and sucked sideways. Instinctively she threw herself across the Vulcan, wondering what the hell it was now assaulting the ship. The crew just weren't up to fire fights or strange encounters after the last few days.

She could feel a tightening in him, as if the rocking of the ship had galvanised him to a readiness for danger. He began to push up against her and she moved away, realising that the shaking of the ship had stopped.

'Computer,' he muttered.

'Here,' she said, putting a hand under his arm to help him up. He sounded disoriented, but there was a determination rippling through him that she knew better than to protest against. He blinked his eyes open and closed, wiping blood from his own forehead with the back of his hand, and then tried to walk.

He stumbled, and she helped him to her desk chair. He sank down in it, flicking on the computer and a moment later pressing the intercom.

'Bridge,' he said sharply.

Christine was relieved to hear more strength and focus in his voice. He was pulling on his disciplines, pushing away the sickness – and pushing away whatever feelings for her that had been moving close to the surface.

He flicked the intercom switch off and on, frowning.

'Communications are out,' he said briefly. 'Computer. External sensors. What just occurred?'

'Explosion. Unknown origin. Unknown type,' the computer replied crisply.

Spock exhaled, looking up at Christine, his face washed out with fatigue.

'Bridge,' he said again, toggling the intercom button as if turning it on and off would force it into life.

He began to push himself up, pressing his hands hard onto the desk as if he were exhausted.

'Oh, no,' Christine said firmly. 'I will not allow you to go to the bridge, Mr Spock. It's sick bay or nothing.'

He looked up at her, a brief flicker of _something_ in his eyes that she could not define.

'You could re-infect the entire ship,' she warned him. 'And – ' She looked down, feeling that niggling itch between her fingers. 'And me. I think I'm already re-infected. All right,' she said firmly. 'I'm putting you in my bed, Mr Spock. We need to wait for communications to come back online. I'm quarantining us both.'

He breathed in deeply, trying to steady himself again and push the fever away. He looked down at his torn clothing, and back at her.

'I had to feel for your heartbeat,' she faltered, aware that ripping his top had more been an act of panic than clear-headedness.

'Yes, of course,' he said with more than a grain of doubt in his voice. 'Christine – '

Suddenly her room seemed unaccountably hot, and she found herself breathing in deeply, just as Spock had, trying to push away a feeling that could have been the encroaching virus, or could simply have been her own feminine response to that tone as he said her name.

'There,' she said suddenly, seeing with a jolt of relief that the intercom was flashing. She had barely heard the beeping through the haze in her mind. She leaned past the Vulcan and flicked the switch, and heard McCoy saying in a tone that was more than irritable, 'Nurse Chapel! Where's my head nurse? There's been an incident, for God's sake!'

'Doctor, Mr Spock did not receive the cure for the virus,' she said crisply, suddenly recalled to professional demeanour just by his tone of voice. 'He's here in my quarters. He's re-infected me.'

'Good God,' McCoy muttered. 'Well then, stay there. Stay there…'

'Are there many casualties?' she asked.

'Well – ' the doctor began. 'Not many, no,' he said rather shamefacedly. 'But you know you're supposed to report when there's a red alert.'

'I couldn't,' she replied tartly. She had not even noticed the red alert siren. It must have flicked on and off when she was concerned with Spock.

'I'll be down there in a few minutes with the cure,' the doctor said. 'Hold tight.'

She looked to Spock, who was sitting back in the desk chair after his aborted attempt to get up. He looked flushed, but his breathing was steadying, and his eyes seemed to be clearing of their fevered haze.

'I'm all right,' he said in response to her look. 'I don't need to lie down.'

He looked up at her, his eyes meeting hers with an honesty in them that brought a lump to her throat.

'Christine, I came here to – ' he began.

'You're not well, Mr Spock,' she cut across him, raising a hand. 'You shouldn't – '

'I must explain,' he said in a low, ragged voice.

'No,' she said, shaking her head. 'You said it's too late. That's enough for me.'

His eyes dropped, and he nodded.

'I am sorry,' he said in a low voice.

'I know,' she nodded.

'You have a message,' he said then, nodding at a blinking light on the computer screen. 'Subspace, from a 'fleet source.'

'Oh,' she said in surprise.

She had very few friends in the fleet who weren't on the _Enterprise._ She moved towards the screen – but then her door opened and McCoy came through, two hypos in his hand. He looked between the two of them, confusion on his face, and began, 'What the hell – ?'

'The second phase of the illness seems to cause fever and collapse,' Christine said swiftly, before more complicated questions could be asked about why Spock was in her quarters with his clothing ripped apart. 'Mr Spock collapsed.'

'Well, his vitals seem to be recovering now,' McCoy said, his scanner outstretched. 'Here,' he said, pressuring a dose of the cure into both of their arms. 'This should work pretty quickly.'

'What caused the red alert, doctor?' Spock asked. He was apparently recovering health with typical Vulcan swiftness, the colour returning to his face second by second.

'Bridge doesn't exactly confide in me,' the doctor began gruffly, but then said, 'It was something to do with that Class Six Anomaly. Damn thing exploded – or something exploded in it – just as we were at its edge.'

'Debris?' Spock asked.

'It may have been a ship,' McCoy nodded gravely. 'There're preliminary reports of fragments. But if it was there aren't any survivors – including the anomaly itself. It shrunk back in on itself and disappeared, just as if it was cancelled out.'

'Fascinating,' Spock murmured.

'Almost as fascinating as that lovely cut on your forehead,' the doctor said critically. 'You'd better come down to sick bay and let me see to that.'

'Doctor, I need to be on the bridge,' the Vulcan said firmly.

'You need to go via sick bay,' McCoy insisted. 'I'm not passing you fit for duty until I've checked out that head wound. Miss Chapel – you're on shift again in – fifty minutes, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am, Doctor,' she nodded. 'I'll follow you down there. I just want to check this letter – '

But the doctor and the Vulcan were already making their way out of the door. She sighed as she watched Spock go, a swift pain for what might have been passing through her chest. Perhaps if they hadn't been rocked by that sudden explosion and instead had sailed gracefully on into the heart of that anomaly Spock would have continued in whatever confession it was he wanted to give her, and…

No. She shook her head. It was all foolishness. Spock – was Spock. And besides, she had Roger…

She sat down in her chair, the seat still warm from Spock's presence, and opened up the message…

…and was greeted with her own face. _Her_ face – but not quite her. She looked tired and drawn and cold, and as if some great tragedy was hanging heavily over her bones. She began to speak, and Christine leant forward on her elbows, and listened to herself explain…

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

In the briefing room, later, she recounted only a careful selection of what her doppelganger had told her. The captain had acceded to her private request to relay the pertinent parts of the message rather than to run the message itself for the senior officers to see. It was a measure of his trust in her that he accepted her repetition of the relevant details rather than insisting on watching it himself.

'It was a very private message,' she confided in him, 'to myself, from myself – like a diary really. Or a deathbed confession…'

'I understand,' the captain had said to her gravely. 'I won't ask you to recount anything private.'

She nodded, and gratefully accepted his brief, platonic hug. Watching the message had left her more than a little shaken. In a strange way, she almost felt bereaved. She had watched her own self preparing for death – and knew that somewhere in that _other_ ship, Spock had also made preparations for his own death.

Now, sitting in the briefing room as the senior officers scanned her report, there was a feeling of a funeral in the air. There was the same sombre silence, the same grave expressions. Everyone's eyes were turned to the padds that held copies of the report. Everyone's except Spock's, that is. True to form, he had taken in the contents of his padd within less than a minute. His eyes were now fixed firmly upon Christine's face, as if he were trying to read her mind simply by looking at her. Unable to bear his scrutiny, she looked down at her own padd, despite the fact that she knew what she had written there almost by heart.

'It is logical,' Spock said finally. 'The anomaly was almost entirely composed of negative energy. My – counterpart – arranged an explosion of positive energy. The explosion of the _Enterprise_'s warp engines and all of its additional matterwould account for more positive energy than was needed – hence the shock wave that struck _this_ version of the ship.'

McCoy was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Christine could tell that he was focussed on the medical angles of the story rather than the ramifications in physics. Scott, however, was nodding gravely.

'Aye,' he said. 'My poor wee bairns would account for that, and more. It was the only thing they could do.'

_They_, Christine thought with dark, internal humour. Not Scotty, not even Spock, it seemed, could bring themselves to refer to those other two as _Spock_ and _Miss Chapel_. It was like speaking of ghosts. She herself could not imagine committing herself to the death that her other self had – but her other self was _her_. In the same situation, she would have taken the same actions. She could barely believe it of herself…

'Well,' Kirk said finally, looking about the table, his eyes hovering on Christine for just a moment longer than the others. 'That wraps it all up, I think. It explains the explosion. It explains the DNA residue we were picking up, and the fragments of Starfleet material. Perhaps we should close this up with _there but for the grace of God go I_.'

'Illogical, Captain,' Spock said pensively, looking up from steepled fingers. 'But – fitting, I think.'

'I think I'm gonna go down to the labs,' McCoy said with equal preoccupation. 'I want to find out exactly what that disease does that could protect a person from negative energy. Spock, Nurse Chapel, want to help?'

Christine looked up, startled. She had almost thought herself into another place and time.

'Uh – not just now, Leonard,' she said quickly, shaking away the ghost from that taped message. 'I might stop by later.'

'Indeed,' Spock said in his deep voice, and she realised that he was standing now just behind her chair. He looked down at Christine, his gaze burning onto her again with uncomfortable intensity. 'I believe that the nurse and I have some things to discuss. Is that right, Miss Chapel?' he asked.

He had used her surname and title – but his voice and eyes were soft as he asked. She smiled and nodded, swallowing on a lump of sadness over _what could have been_.

'Yes,' she said, moving the small yellow disc that contained the message between her fingers. 'Yes, I think we have a lot to discuss, Mr Spock.'


End file.
